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What is a Transition?

Not every scene is like a basic scene or like a main scene some scenes are all introspection, some are all action without introspection. Some scenes are scenes that are specifically used to relocate a character in time or space. These are called transition scenes.

However, not all transitions are full scenes. A scene transition is usually not a scene in itself. It’s the narration between scenes. Too much narration turns a novel into a report. Transitions can be short like “The next morning”. They can be a couple of paragraphs. They could be entire scenes. (Like a train ride).

Scene transitions can be pure narrative, a recitation of who did what and when. Narration is often discouraged since it’s telling rather than showing, but narration is quite useful for transitions. It’s an efficient way to indicate a change in place or time and provide details without drawing out the information into a scene of its own.

Why Use Scene Transitions

To provide description

To break tension

To slow the pace

To skip unimportant events or time periods

To create or switch mood or tone

To advance the time

To change location

To change viewpoint character

While scene transitions can be used to change the tone, they could be used just as easily to maintain tone. That is, if your story is humorous, keep your transitions humorous too.

Scene to Scene

In fiction, a scene is a unit of drama. A sequel is what follows; an aftermath. Together, scene and sequel provide the building blocks of plot for short stories, novels, and other forms of fiction.

Scenes are indispensable when writing a novel. A novel is lengthy, about 80,000-130,000 words. Scenes are usually only 400-500 words long. You can easily edit a scene rather than editing the whole manuscript, which makes editing more manageable. During the editing process, you can check for structure, flow, characters, and plot holes. You can also break up one scene into two or more scenes if you want the editing process simplified.

A scene transition takes characters and readers to a new location, a new time, or a new point of view. Transitions can also be used to show a character’s change in heart or frame of mind.

So, we use scene transitions to skip periods of time or to change to a new location in the story, glossing over events that happen between the new and old times or locations.

Scene transitions need to identify place, time, and viewpoint character, especially if there’s been a change in any of the three. If the new scene has a change in mood or tone, that should also be established right away.

If the viewpoint character has changed, identify the new viewpoint character right off by naming him.

Time and place can be established in any number of ways. They can:

Name the new place

Describe the new place

Describe the event

Mention the time or day or date

Show a character doing something we already knew he’d be doing at a set time or in a particular place

Chapter Transitions

Scene transitions can be seamlessly inserted at the beginnings of chapters since readers expect a transition between chapters. In fact, you don’t need to write a detailed transition if you ended the previous chapter with a teaser of what’s to come.

What are Chapters?

A chapter is a main division in a novel. Each chapter can be either numbered or titled or both Each chapter is made up of two or more scene. However, some chapters may encompass only one scene. Chapters can be long or short. However, you don’t want them too short in that you end up with too many of them or too long that it becomes cumbersome to the reader. Chapter length may depend on the novel’s audience. For instance, chapters of children’s books will be a lot shorter than novels written for adults.

How do you effectively create chapters in a novel? It depends. In adventure and mystery novels, some people like to end chapters on cliffhangers. However, the bottom line is that you should end chapters whenever you feel a major shift in the story, whether it be a change in point of view or a new scene.

Chapter Breaks

Thoughtful chaptering is more important than ever. By starting and ending in the right places, your chapter breaks alone can serve the powerful function of building suspense and keeping your readers reading. Unlike sentences or paragraphs, which have rules, chapters are artistic decisions; there are no rules. Here are three simple, essential techniques that can help you make effective chapter pauses.

1. First Focus on Writing

To decide where to insert breaks, some writers make chapters part of their initial outline. However, others see this method as too restrictive and feel that the most effective chapter breaks come from writing first and then evaluating the structure. Instead they structure their outline by episodes and events, not chapters. When the draft is finished, they go back and look over the manuscript and decide where to make the best chapter breaks.

2. When your story needs a change

Changes of place, changes of time and changes of point of view (POV) are all excellent places for chapter breaks. Sometimes, our stories make them necessary like in changes of place, perspective, point of view, and plot direction. This transition tells the reader that its time for reorientation. Chapter breaks of this type lead to continuity and pacing which are necessary to increase suspense.

3. During an action scene

How can I end this part so that the sleepy reader is compelled to keep the light on, if only to see how some crisis turns out or how some crucial question is answered? For even more suspense, break the chapter in the heart of action.

Effective as it is, there are a couple of problems: First, you don’t want to end every chapter this way, or even most of them. It becomes predictable, which is something you never want anybody to say about your novel. After a while, this tactic loses its effectiveness. Suspension of disbelief can go just so far. For the technique to be most effective, it needs to be an integral part of the overall story, not a gratuitous invention inserted just to try to keep the reader turning pages.

Changing Scenes within Chapters

Not all scene changes occur between chapters. Sometimes you need a scene change within a chapter.

If point of view that’s changing, be sure to identify the new viewpoint character (POV) immediately. A change in point of view qualifies as a change in scene because the reader is in the head of a different character—different thoughts and emotions. There’s probably a different tone to this section as well, as you’d expect with a different character’s personality both coloring and filtering the reader’s perceptions. Never change POV within a paragraph.

POV changes without notice and within scenes cause two major problems. First, they confuses the reader. You never want your readers getting lost in your novel. You certainly don’t want any of them to have to reread because you failed to provide enough scene markers. Each time a reader stops reading because she must reread a passage, she is pulled out of the fiction you’ve crafted. You lose the reader’s trust when he is repeatedly yanked from the novel’s world.

And second, the reader loses the connection he had with the viewpoint character. You work to create connections for your reader, so he can step into the mind and heart and life of a character. If you’ve done it well, the reader will read as if he’s experiencing the events.

Chapter Endings

Chapter endings in fiction look both backward and forward. They are transitions between what has already happened and what is about to break loose. They are links and doorways and connection points.

The end of a chapter—the last scene, the last paragraph, the last sentence—brings closure to one chapter but at the same time needs to lead readers and characters to the next scene and chapter and story event.

A chapter ending that doesn’t satisfy the events of the chapter, at least some of them, hasn’t done its work. And the chapter ending that doesn’t pull readers deeper into the story, fill them with anticipation for what comes next, also hasn’t accomplished all that it should.

Except for the first and last chapters, most chapter endings have similar purposes.

Endings will address and resolve or address and deepen story problems introduced in that chapter or earlier chapters. Of course, not every problem is resolved, but there will be some closure. At the same time, some new event or twist will raise the tension level. Some answers will be provided, but those answers might be what drives character and reader into the next story event. And into the next chapter.

Successful endings will raise tension for readers and keep them involved in the story.

Not every chapter will have the same degree of closure as other chapters. Vary your chapter endings, but the endings should reflect what came before if only to mention an event or character or repeat a word or phrasing that tie story elements together.

Chapter endings will not put readers to sleep.

Chapter endings should introduce or raise tension and/or conflict

Chapter endings can introduce new problems.

Chapter endings can reveal something new about a character’s personality or his reasons for being involved in whatever story issue has a hold on him.

Chapter endings can introduce new characters, new aspects of old characters, new events, and secrets.

Chapters can end with dialogue or with action. They should contain something new or surprising.

Chapters should never end with a character yawning and going to bed. The reader will do the same and may never return.

Chapter endings (other than the one for the final chapter) will not resolve all story issues revealed up to that point. If they did, readers would have no reason to keep reading.

Use cliffhanger endings if that works for the genre and the style of story you want to tell.

Use anticipation and fear and any emotion that will keep readers turning pages.

Shake up your story and characters with the unexpected at a chapter’s end. Satisfy and tease at the same time.

Write captivating chapter endings and never allow your readers to become bored.

Get Your FREE Copy of The Comprehensive Novel Editing Checklist

This is the first post in a series of blog posts about how
to edit your novel. If you have a first draft that you would love to publish
this year, be sure to pick up a copy of my novel editing checklist and if you
haven’t already, sign up to make sure that you never miss a post of this
editing series.

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You’ve developed strong story ARCs. You’ve fleshed out and built strong character ARCs. You have determined point of view and which tense you’re going to use throughout the book. Your novel has a strong beginning and a strong ending.

Building a Scene

The basic building block of any story whether play or novel is the scene. Every scene is a step from the first scene to the last.

Look over the story ARCs that you’ve created and determine where each scene of the ARC will occur in the story. The first thing to do is to determine what the purpose or purposes each scene will have regarding moving the story forward.

Different types of scenes exist. These types fall under three broad categories. First is the action scene. The second is the introspection scene. Third is the transitional scene.

Determine what action needs to occur within this scene and what needs to be discussed by the characters during this scene. Work any good details from the first draft into this second draft and eliminate any empty dialogue and rambling internalization. Develop character voices and craft unique characters based on the information in your character bible.

The Anatomy of the Basic Scene

Just as the body is made up of cells, so the novel is made up of scenes. Each scene has a goal, something to be accomplished. Two, a set-up, three location, for characters at odds or in conflict (in the case of introspection, a character could be at odds with himself.) Action, emotion, and dialogue. Finally, each scene must have a conclusion either to jettison you into the next scene or toward the next conflict.

The most important aspect of the scene is the goal of what you want to accomplish with this scene. Scenes should never be part of a story just to fill space. The more you’ve defined the scene’s goal, the better it adds to the storyline.

The object of the setup is to get characters together or to get one character alone so that character can be involved in introspection.

Location involves knowing when and where the scene is occurring.

What conflict is at stake during this scene?

How is this conflict carried out in action, emotion and dialogue? What drama is involved?

What is the conclusion of this scene? How does it set up for the next scene?

The Main Scenes

A novel has ten main scenes with various other scenes between. The main plot will be the main event of each of these ten scenes. These scenes are:

#1 – First scenes Introduce protagonist in her world. Establish her core need. Set the stage, begin building the world, bring key characters on stage.

#2 – Turning Point #1 inciting incident.

#3 – Pinch Point #1 Give a glimpse of the opposition’s power, need, and goal as well as the stakes.

#4 – Twist #1: Something new happens: a new ally, a friend becomes a foe. New info reveals a serious complication to reaching the goal. Protagonist must adjust to change with this setback.

#5 – The midpoint No turning back. Important event that propels the story forward and solidifies the protagonist’s determination to reach her goal.

#6 – Pinch Point #2 The opposition comes full force. Time to buckle down and fight through it.

#7 – Twist 2: A surprise giving (false?) hope. The goal now looks within reach. A mentor gives encouragement, a secret weapon, an important clue.

#8 – Turning Point #4 Major setback. All is lost and hopeless. Time for final push.

#9 – Turning Point #5 The climax where the goal is either reached or not; the main questions are answered.

#10 – The Ending scene. the aftermath, the wrap-up and resolution. (more discussion about this in last week’s post).

Determine what occurs during these scenes and write the scenes according to the guidelines of a basic scene and you will have the main scenes of your main plot well established.

Get Your FREE Copy of The Comprehensive Novel Editing Checklist

This is the first post in a series of blog posts about how
to edit your novel. If you have a first draft that you would love to publish
this year, be sure to pick up a copy of my novel editing checklist and if you
haven’t already, sign up to make sure that you never miss a post of this
editing series.

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Writing great beginnings and endings is like finding bookends for your novel. Last week we discussed how to write a great beginning. This week we’ll go over great endings.

Five Ways to End Your Novel

1. The trusty plot twist: Plot twists are great alternatives to inserting last-minute characters who fix everything. A plot twist offers the unexpected, but the key difference is that it makes sense within the story’s world. A good twist feels surprising but somehow appropriate for the story and protagonist.

2. The “oh, no!” that leads to the “aha!”: Life is crashing down on your protagonist, the weight of the story’s conflict is becoming too much to handle, and he or she simply isn’t up to the task — everything is surely doomed. Congratulations! Your character is in the story’s darkest moment, where someone or something must serve as inspiration for rising against all odds and saving the day. In these desperate times your character searches within, has a eureka! Epiphany that ends your story with triumph and satisfied readers.

3. Going back to square one: This path takes your protagonist to the same dark moment already mentioned. But, when given a clear opportunity to turn his or her life around, the character… doesn’t. Instead, he or she returns to old ways, or the status quo. This type of ending works best if you are writing a character-driven novel.

4. Is this really the end?: Open-ended endings are tough to pull off and require quite a bit of character and plot understanding, but leaving your readers with thoughtful questions can get them talking and thinking about possible answers. This kind of ending is popular with many book series and draws the reader to read the next book.

5. Close the book: After the final climactic moment, don’t hang around explaining “this is what happens after.” Readers tend to lose interest once the story’s reached a satisfying conclusion.

Some writers like to experiment with different endings until they come to one that best suits their story. Don’t be afraid to write, rewrite, and rewrite again until your ending sounds natural, satisfactory, and complete!

If you want to become a better author, learning how to end a book well is crucial.

Tips to Write Better Story Endings

Build to an intriguing climax. A great ending is all in the build-up. A taut climax isn’t equally important for every genre. A novel that relies on twists, turns and tension (a murder mystery or thriller, for example) will require a stronger build-up.

Books benefit from a satisfying build-up. Placing complications in your story that get in the way a satisfying ending keeps readers interested in what will happen next.

How do you build to a climactic novel ending?

Vary pace – write shorter scenes and chapters to increase momentum.

Keep the largest confrontations between characters for your final chapters, but hint at their approach.

Make sure your ending is earned, not improbable.

A story with an improbable ending is frustrating because it rings untrue. Usually the ending that makes sense follows the simple logic of cause and effect.

This doesn’t mean that you cannot create an outlandish, fantastical, or unexpected ending. There are very few absolute rules when it comes to writing fiction. Yet laying groundwork for your ending and building the anticipation of a specific outcome (even if the outcome itself proves different to what you’ve led readers to expect) creates a sense of direction and objective.

An irritatingly unlikely ending may result if you get yourself into tricky tangle in your plot. Many fictional characters are a little too lucky and are saved by the bell. Be careful of letting a strong sense of cause and effect slip away in your closing chapters for the sake of convenient resolution.

Leave Room for the Imagination

An ending doesn’t have to be the end of your character.

Story endings that leave room for readers’ imaginations are enjoyable because readers get to picture what comes next, without being told. A little mystery, a little bit of incompletion remains.

This is especially important when you write series. Make sure that your final chapters convey a sense of something new developing or beginning, even as this narrative thread closes.

Review the best novel endings for insights into how to end a book

The best novel endings are masterclasses in how to end a book. When you write your ending, pick up a few of your favorite books. Read the final paragraphs.

• How the book’s ending connects to preceding chapters (does it repeat memorable imagery from earlier? What is ending-like about its language or ideas?)

• The tone of the ending – does it fit with everything that precedes it?

Bring home how your characters have changed

Probably the most important aspect of ending your story lies in change. Showing how your characters have changed at the end of your novel as they’ve reached their objectives creates a satisfying sense of development.

Use the ‘5 W’s’ to create the End

In addition to showing how characters have changed, use the ‘5 w’s’ – who, what, why, where and when – as a whole. Shifting to a climactic location for your closing chapters, for example, adds to the sense of an ultimate destination.

A change of place can help to establish a sense of climax and direction. Similarly, use shifts in setting along with character goals and motivations to show that your story is reaching its end.

How not to End a Novel

Last week, we discussed how not to begin a novel. Here are ways not to end one.

The reader expects a major event, only it doesn’t happen. A bad ending that fizzles out or miraculously rescues characters from a tricky situation can ruin a good book. Anti-climax, of course, is a valid literary device, but this path is a risky and some may see not delivering what you have foreshadowed as a cop-out.

If you’re not sure what type of ending to use, write multiple endings and let them sit a while. Read through your entire manuscript from the beginning and see which flows best and makes the most cohesive sense for your whole story.

Ending your novel is more important than beginning it, despite the reasoning that the opening entices the reader into the work. Both are skills to master. However, fixing a problematic opening in a revision is simple compared with fixing a befuddled ending. Traditionally, endings are viewed as “happy”, “sad”, “pensive”, “surprise”, “abrupt” and the rest of the gamut. However, it really doesn’t matter “how” your novel ends, it’s “where” your novel ends that is critical.

Anti-Climax endings are usually recognized by their failure to please, surprise, or even keep the reader’s attention. It is generally caused by having a more powerful scene a few chapters from the end, which “peaks” your novel too soon. It’s downhill from there. This is corrected by toning down the zenith chapter, although it might break your heart. Usually, the culprit scene and the final scene have similar settings, characters and tone. Change the earlier scene’s intensity, setting and character mesh. Intensify the last scene. The last scene must be the most important and memorable scene in the novel or why should the reader even bother to make the journey?

Runaway train endings are recognized when your pacing is too fast. Your ending comes up suddenly, catching the reader off-guard. You don’t want your reader asking “Is that it?” This usually stems from wanting to finish the book. Take the time to determine how your story will end. Put clues on the ending throughout the book. Think about when your “ending” begins. If it starts in the last two chapters, back up and rethink. The earlier your novel’s ending begins, the stronger and firmer paced the ending is. Most novel endings begin in the middle of the work and some in the first paragraph of Chapter One. You must be continually building toward the end.

Contrived endings are grafted onto the novel, and usually because the author is using a strict outline. The stronger the outline, the more constraint there is for character development. Characters are forced to say and do things that the author wants them to say or do. When the work concludes, the end is usually contrived.

Developmental endings are common. Authors do not always see that their style much change by the end of the novel. Expositional styles in the first third of the novel, work less and less as the work progresses. Developmental devices stop working by the last third. Too many times last scenes are a suite of settings, flashbacks, hula dances, complex actions requiring science degrees and the like. Endings can be action scenes, but simple ones, with intensely short sentences, without metaphors and similes. Extensive movement should be simplified and clear. Character activity and dialogue should be emphasized. Build, build, build to a climax, and never introduce a new character in the last twenty pages.

Dribble out endings are evident in works that do not have an ending. They have no impact. The reader is supposed to ponder the ending because the author forgot to write one.

Epilogues

Epilogues can be good, because readers what to know some of the details beyond the end of the story. The problem with epilogues is that they are sometimes incorporated into the last scene. Epilogues are “not” the ending. They just come “at the end.” An epilogue settles details in a satisfactory way, leaving something open for perhaps another “book” in a series, and makes the reader feel better for reading your work.

Be assured that when you revise your novel you “will” rewrite your ending. You should, just as you should craft a dozen openers revise your endings in the same way to see what provides the most satisfying ending.

Get Your FREE Copy of The Comprehensive Novel Editing Checklist

This is the first post in a series of blog posts about how
to edit your novel. If you have a first draft that you would love to publish
this year, be sure to pick up a copy of my novel editing checklist and if you
haven’t already, sign up to make sure that you never miss a post of this
editing series.

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Once I understand my story lines and have an intimate relationship with my characters, it’s time to figure out how to begin the story.

How does a novelist determine exactly where to begin the novel? Many new authors are apt to start a story too early rather than too late.

To determine where to start, determine when your first dramatic event or your first major plot point occurs. Thought your beginning doesn’t need to start with action, something important does need to be occurring as it relates to the story line. The beginning of your novel needs to begin by hooking your audience into the story through either action, character, or setting.

The First Line

The story begins with the first line. Perfect first lines can be vivid or establish a unique story voice. It may contain a surprise, something that makes the audience laugh, a statement of truth. The first line can also be very clear and contain the entirety of the novel. The perfect line takes many forms and only you can determine the perfect first line of your story.

Be patient as you look for it. You may have to take several tries before you find the right one that hooks the reader into your story.

Try starting with an interesting detail of character, setting or something symbolic of your story’s largest themes.

Your Novel’s First Paragraph

Your great first line must then be followed by a great opening paragraph.

A great opening line must be followed by a great opening paragraph. It’s hard to do either if you don’t have a central story idea that inspires you and suggests ideas, but if you have done the work of determining your story line (and subplots) and have developed an intimate relationship with your characters, so this shouldn’t be too difficult. Take some information about your protagonist and your setting and create a scene where your protagonist is just before the first plot point. This type of story opening can us a feeling of sweeping history, of epic time spanning generations. We get roped more into the character’s life as we start to see glimpses of his past and the environment and upbringing that shaped him.

In addition, you may want to add a bit of mystery to your story. For instance, your character may do something in the opening paragraph that makes the reader wonder what is going on and why that character might be doing what he is doing.

If the story opens with a narrator, how does the narrator’s voice itself capture our interest? with humor? or distinct personality?

Every novel opening contains at least one of the following elements of great opening hooks. Do you have unanswered questions? Intriguing actions or events? A troubling or unusual or suspenseful scenario?

TENSE AND POINT OF VIEW

With your first paragraph, determine how you will handle tense and point of view throughout the whole story. Most novels are written in the past tense. It is important to maintain that tense throughout the entire book. If you choose to try to use some other tense (as an experiment), be sure to use that throughout the novel.

Though traditionally, tense has been past tense, you have always had options when it comes to how traditional novels approach point of view.

You might choose first person. I ran after the dog.

You might choose third person Jan ran after the dog.

You might choose omniscient. Jan ran after the dog while the class watched and wondered. Would she catch him?

A more modern approach is to switch between viewpoints and even use present tense instead of past tense. Before deciding on viewpoint and tense consider this. Studies have shown that older readers prefer past tense while younger ones prefer present tense. If your audience is older, use past tense. If younger, consider using present tense.

hatever you decide, use the same method throughout the book either present or past tense. You want to avoid confusing your readers with too many tense or point of view changes.

Not sure which POV to write in? Write your first scene first in first person, then third person limited and then omniscient. Which one feels right?

Look for A Natural Starting Point

Does writing your own starting point make you realize your choices are limitless, and this paralyzes you? Yet your novel must flow from the first scene you select. Where should you start? Start wherever you think it should start. You can always change it later. Perhaps even several times until you have the perfect beginning.

You can also start with your character sketches. Ask yourself what this character is doing when you first meet him and write about it.

Read over how you started your first draft. Did you start at a good place or do you think you should have written it later? Did you start too far before the action? If so, look for a better place later in the book. The truth is, you can start your story any number of ways. Come back to this first line, first paragraph and first page several times throughout the writing process until you believe that it is as good as it gets.

Present Strong Characters Immediately

Remember the old adage: Show Don’t Tell. Be sure to bring your protagonist into the first chapter and show him doing something. Establish your characters’ situations. What do they know at the beginning?

Don’t Overdo the Setting

Don’t give the opening scene in too much depth. You’ve got it all pictured in your head: the colors, sounds, flavors and feelings. You want everybody to be in the same place with the story you are. Instead, easy them into the view. An introduction is enough, for now. You’ll fill in the details later. Just give them the basic feel of the setting of whether you’re on star ship or a street in a British colony. Instead of giving the history of the place and how long the character has lived there and the weather, consider showing the character in the setting with a few details that show the scene in that moment. Perhaps even indicate how the character feels about the scene.

Later you can add more details telling about the house, the street, the neighbors and the household pet.

Carefully Choose Details to Create Immediacy

In chapter one, you’ll need to keep your details economical, but avoid vagueness. You want to include details that are necessary to the story and move it along. If the detail serves the story, you can’t have too much.

Make Chapter One a Story in Itself

It’s no accident that many great novels have first chapters that were excerpted in magazines, where they essentially stood as short stories. I remember being knocked to the floor by the gorgeous completeness of Ian McEwan’s first chapter of On Chesil Beach when it was excerpted in The New Yorker.

Every chapter should have its own plot, especially chapter one.

Focus on action. Make trouble. Put your characters in jeopardy early. Make trouble early and make it big or make it ominous.

Don’t let your characters be wishy-washy. Make them decisive. A good way to do that is to make a character take decisive action. End chapter one with some closure, but make that closure false.

Put your Best In Chapter One

Set your tone and flaunt it. Have confidence to own your book. Show the reader that you have generated a terrific idea for action and emotion whenever you want. Pull your reader into your story from the first chapter, the first page, the first paragraph, and the first line. Hook your reader like a big game fisherman.

Don’t Make these Rooky Mistakes

Whether you’re thinking about self-publishing or going traditional, here are several ways that professional agents would not like if you use these following “techniques” when writing your first chapter.

False beginnings Make Readers Feel Cheated

1. Don’t kill off your main character at the end of Chapter One.

2. Don’t create opening scenes that you think are real, but then the protagonist wakes up.

Prologues

1. Readers prefer to find themselves in the midst of a moving plot from page one rather than being kept outside of it, or eased into it.

2. Make chapter one relevant and well-written

3. Prologues are a lazy way to bring back-story chunks to the reader. Backstorys can be handled better within the story. Forget Prologues.

Exposition and description

1. Don’t go beyond what is necessary to setting the scene. The reader wants to feel as though he or she is in the hands of a master storyteller. Long descriptions in chapter one can make the story seem amateurish and contrived.

2. However, equally as bad is the lack of any exposition where the reader becomes disoriented when they learn five pages in that the location is not what the reader thought. Better to have a balance between exposition and mystery.

3. Avoid too many adjectives and adverbs.

4. Avoid long laundry lists of character descriptions. Work character descriptions into the story.

Starting too slowly

1. Though you might want to start with “status quo” at the beginning, don’t have the characters moving around doing little things like housework and thinking.

2. Don’t start with “in the beginning” or “once upon a time” beginnings where nothing happens.

Voice

1. Show don’t tell. Fill your readers’ heads with curiosity about your characters and questions that must be answered. Do this rather than fill them in on exactly where when, who and how.

2. Avoid filling scenes with flowery prose.

3. Avoid starting with a cheesy hook.

4. Avoid starting with My name is. . .

5. Make your main characters more interesting than your secondary ones.

Characters and backstory

2. Have a great plot started before you express too much about the character’s backstory. Good writers focus on plot and cut out the back story. You’ll be amazed at how much the backstory is part of the character’s DNA.

3. Start with action rather than reflection.

4. Don’t drop too much information into the first few pages. Getting to know characters is like getting to know people in real life.

In crime fiction

Don’t start with the protagonist waking up with a hangover.

In fantasy

Don’t start with the opening scene set with a battle or with a pastoral scene where the protagonist is gathering herbs.

In Romance

No having a woman (or man) awakening to find herself with a strange man in her bedroom and automatically finding him attractive. If the average woman awoke to a strange man in her bedroom, she’d be reaching for a weapon, instead of lusting after him.

Get Your FREE Copy of The Comprehensive Novel Editing Checklist

If you have a first draft that you would love to publish this year, be sure to pick up a copy of my novel editing checklist and if you haven’t already, sign up to make sure that you never miss a post of this editing series.

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Very few books are just about a protagonist and the antagonist. Most novels have characters that support the primary characters and help add to the drama of the story. Who are these supporting characters and what is their function?

The SideKick

What sleuth in a mystery doesn’t need a friend or relative with access to inside information? This character is often called the sidekick, and is probably the most important supporting character in many genres.

The Tormentor

We spoke of the antagonist last week, and the tormentor is similar, but this person is different in that he or she is someone whom the protagonist spars but in some way often admires.

Conflict is the spice that makes characters come alive, and an adversary can cause the protagonist all kinds of interesting problems and complicate your story by throwing up roadblocks to the investigation.

In developing an adversary, remember it should be a character who’s positioned to thwart, annoy and generally get in your sleuth’s way. With an adversary in the story, the protagonist gets lots of opportunity to argue, struggle and in general show his mettle and ingenuity.

Fleshing out The Supporting Cast

A supporting character can be anyone in your sleuth’s life—a relative, a friend, a neighbor, a coworker, a professional colleague; the local librarian, waitress, town mayor; even a pet pooch. A supporting character may get ensnared in the plot and land in moral peril, or even take a turn as a suspect. In a series, supporting characters return from book to book and can have ongoing stories of their own.

Supporting characters come with baggage too so pick yours carefully. Think about what all this means to the story line. If your sidekick is married, what’s his/her role in all this. Does he/she get jealous if there is a sexy suspect? If your protagonist has children, not only do you need information about these children, but also about their caregivers. Do they have a nanny or do they go to day care? A significant other? Be prepared to handle the inevitable attraction to that sexy suspect. Remember, if the antagonist has a dog, the dog needs to be walked twice a day which means that your antagonist will have to walk him regularly or hire a dog-walker.

Supporting characters give your character a life, but each one should also play a special role in the story. Supporting characters might start out as stereotypes: a devoted wife, a nagging mother-in-law, a bumbling assistant, a macho cop or a slimy lawyer. It’s OK to typecast supporting characters during the planning phase. When you get into the writing, if you want them to play bigger roles, you’ll want to push past the stereotype and flesh them out, turning them into complex characters who do things that surprise you—and, in turn, the reader.

Like subplots and backstories, you don’t want supporting characters to hog the spotlight. You don’t want bland, uninteresting characters either.

Naming Characters

We’ve discussed many aspects of character sketches within a character bible as well as various types of characters including the protagonist, the antagonist, the sidekick and the tormentor. One thing we haven’t yet used is naming characters.

Give each supporting character a name to match the persona, and be careful to pick names that help the reader remember who’s who.

Nicknames are easy to remember, especially when they provide a snapshot reminder of the character’s personality or appearance. Throwing in some ethnicity makes a character’s name easy to remember, too. Avoid the dull and boring as well as the weirdly exotic.

It’s not easy for readers to keep all your characters straight, so help them out. Don’t give a character two first names like William Thomas, Stanley Raymond or Susan Frances. Vary the number of syllables in character names—it’s harder to confuse a Jane with a Stephanie than it is to confuse a Bob with a Hank. Pick names that don’t sound alike or start with the same letter. If your protagonist’s sister is Leanna, don’t name her best friend Lillian or Dana.

Create a list of names that you consider “keepers,” and add to it whenever you find a new one you like.

Walk-on Characters

Minor characters should make an impression when they come on the scene, but not a big splash. It doesn’t matter that the character is tall or short, fat or thin, bald or long-haired. What matters is what he or she does. He delivers three lines of dialogue and gives the protagonist an all-important sym-card that moves the plot along.

A minor role is no place for a complex character. Don’t imbue one with a lot of mystery that your reader will expect you to explain. A name, a few quirky details, and a bit of action or dialogue are more effective than a long, drawn-out description in minor characters.

Remember that the world of your novel will also be full of walk-on characters who provide texture and realism. Each one may also have some small role in facilitating the plot, but for the most part, walk-on characters are there to make scenes feel authentic. When crafting your more important minor characters, don’t get carried away and forget that walk-ons should get no more than a sentence or two of introduction. They don’t need names, and a touch of description is plenty. Choose details that can be a kind of shorthand commentary on the neighborhood or context.

Used in this way, walk-ons remain as much elements of setting as they are characters—and that setting will be a fitting backdrop to help both your protagonist and your more important supporting characters stand out.

To Do This Week

Use this information that you have created about your characters and character-related issues, such as two-dimensional characters, inconsistent points of view, too-much backstory, stale dialogue, didactic internalization, and lack of voice. Analyze your draft, spot any problems or weak areas in character development, and fix those problems.

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For the last several weeks we have been discussing the components of character sketches in general within a character bible. This week we are going to dig a little deeper into the most important characters in your story—the protagonist and the antagonist.

The Protagonist

The protagonist is the main character in the book and the antagonist is the one who stands in the way of the protagonist from getting what he or she desires.

Novels typically follow the lead character, the protagonist, through the story events. This protagonist is acted on by other characters and events in the story and acts on those other characters and events in turn. Something out of the ordinary—an inciting event—moves the lead character from the status quo and into the drama of the story.

Something’s at stake for him, and the story revolves around his actions to resolve the problem(s) he faces.

The protagonist and antagonist have specific aims at the story’s start. They want something, or they want something to happen, or, even perhaps, they want something not to happen. Maybe they want to be left alone, want to just finish their day’s work and not be bothered by anyone. Maybe they want to hide from the world, from a friend, or maybe from an enemy.

But once a story begins, both your protagonist and antagonist have their lives interrupted by others or by events beyond their control. They’re pulled into a mission or quest or an adventure they hadn’t planned to have happen.

By the end of the story, their goals have changed.

Your protagonist now has new goals, goals that push and pull him through your story, that logically get him from scene to scene and meeting characters who either help or hinder him.

Your Antagonist

A protagonist is probably the easiest character to define because everything about the story revolves around this character, however, many beginning authors have difficulty creating good antagonists. That is why we are going to focus most of this blog on the antagonist.

The antagonist is the main character who stands between the protagonist and his way. This person is considered the villain but is not necessarily evil. This character’s goal is in direct conflict with the protagonist’s goal.

The antagonist should not exist merely to obstruct the protagonist. He or she should be equal in strength to your protagonist and be able to put up a good fight. The best type of antagonist is someone already in the protagonist’s life. This character’s motive for opposing the protagonist must be as strong and logical as the hero’s reason for opposing the antagonist. The antagonist does not need to have negative motives. It could be that if the roles are reversed, the villain could be the protagonist. In addition, the antagonist must believe that his motives are valid, and his actions are justified.

How to Create a Strong Antagonist

A strong antagonist is trying to accomplish something, something evil. In plot-driven novels an event triggers his or her actions. In character-driven novels this person might be trying to hurt the protagonist in some way.

The antagonist has personal desires. He might be a murderer, a greedy person, someone who enjoys violence or have a personal demon. He or she won’t just wake up one morning and decide to be evil for the fun of it. The antagonist wants something and is determined that his or her plan is the best course of action to get it. He may, however, simply be the protagonist’s rival.

The antagonist must be highly motivated to act. The more plausible you make these motivations, the deeper your villain. For character-driven novels, the antagonist might are motivated as intently as the protagonist is.

The antagonist might be trying to avoid something. He needs to have something at stake as well. Failure should mean more than just failing in the plan. Nasty consequences must exist.

There will be consequences if she doesn’t succeed. She might be the cautionary tale if the antagonist took a darker path or gave in to temptation. It is important that the antagonist has a good reason for his lofty goals. Being evil for the sake of evil risks having a paper doll villain that isn’t scary or interesting.

Don’t make your antagonist fall for the same old traps again and again. Better to have a strong villain who adapts his or her plan based on what the protagonist is doing. This forces the protagonist to grow, always staying one step ahead. In a character-driven novel, the protagonist might rationalize following a destructive path.

Give your antagonist positive traits as well as negative ones. This helps keep the villain from always acting as a villain, but as a more complex and understandable person. In addition, the antagonist must also be flawed in relatable ways. Human weakness is always something that readers can relate.

Readers relate to human weakness. If your antagonist has flaws that tap into the human side of her (even if she’s not human) then she becomes more real and readers can see her side of the story.

A good antagonist has secrets. He or she is afraid that people will find out certain things because the antagonist is up to no good. Sometimes exposing those secrets also expose weaknesses or flaws that she doesn’t want anyone else to see.

The antagonist must be an obstacle to the protagonist and therefore must cross paths (and swords) with the protagonist and does it often. However, this does not have to be deliberate.

Types of Antagonists

Many types of antagonists exist. Sometimes the antagonist starts out as a close ally. Characters who oppose your main character’s goals aren’t necessarily ‘bad’, yet they serve a primary function: Standing between another character and their destiny.

Five Types of Antagonists

The malevolent villain is the villain from common fantasy genres, but are in many different stories. This antagonist has an appetite for destruction. However this type of villain has pitfalls because villains who are evil for evil’s sake often lack development and motivations that make characters believable.

To make these characters realistic, brainstorm reasons that this character would be evil.

Give them vulnerabilities or weaknesses. These don’t have to be emotional or physical. They could be strategic. For example, a villain who surrounds themselves with greedy henchmen is more vulnerable to betrayal if their supporters are easily swayed by material rewards

The ally-antagonist is an ally turned antagonist.

The ally-antagonist is a useful character because they show how easy it is for a ‘good’ character to make a regrettable choice

When writing an ally-antagonist, remember to Show the flaws in their personality that explain their behavior. Give them compelling motivations for their choices. Ally-antagonists add shades of grey in the ‘black and white’ of ‘good vs evil’. They show us how easily people can take destructive paths that result in negative outcomes. Some also refer to this type of antagonist as a ‘hero antagonist’ since they may be motivated by noble ideals. The nobility or virtue of this underlying wish makes his actions more tragic, since it appears his intentions are good.

The interfering authority figure stands between a primary character and his or her main goals.

An interfering authority figure is thus useful for creating challenges and complications that make life harder for your protagonist.

• This antagonist’s broader story role could be to show something about the nature of power and authority in your book’s society.

• This antagonist could demonstrate cultural values or practices that stand between your character and their goals

• The interfering authority antagonist can make selfish or value-driven choices that get in your protagonist’s way.

• A secondary antagonist could include authority antagonists like border patrol officers or power-drunk bureaucrats who delay characters.

The force of nature is one of the few types of antagonists that don’t need a clear motivation. This type of antagonist doesn’t have to have a character ARC or backstory explaining how they became corrupt You can vary this type of antagonist to create tension and unpredictability. In addition you can intensify the opposition. For instance, you can have an occasional surprise that is opposite. For instance, in Titanic, there was a fire on the ship that was sinking. Next, you’ll want to make the danger real. This will induce fear and repercussions. For the most tension and opposition, you’ll want this opponent to be at its worst self.

The inner saboteur is a story where the character’s main struggle is within himself. In this case the protagonist and the antagonist are the same person.

The danger of this type of antagonistic situation is that your character’s thoughts could dominate the narration, without much exchange with others.

If your character’s main opponent is his own self, remember to show destructive behavior in action. Think about the origins of their self-destructive choices. What motivated your character originally to embark on a path of self-destruction? You’ll also want to Include secondary antagonists who add external conflict to the mix

Many types of antagonists exist that bring gripping conflict and opposition to a story.

Whichever type you create, make sure to characterize each opponent with as much thought as you would your protagonist.

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Characters are the beings, the actors, of story. They can be human, animal, mechanical, or any combination of any of the above. Readers like character in which they can relate.

Last week, you learned about how to start a character bible by determining your character’s physical appearance and personality and include them in your books character bible. This week you’re going to dig deeper into your characters’ backstory and his or her wants and goals.

What is Your Character’s Baggage?

Everyone comes into a relationship with some sort of baggage so do characters. They can’t simply be dropped into a story, they must come from somewhere. We all have a past and if we want our characters to seem real, they also have a history that affects why they act as they do now.

Remember your backstory is not your main story, so don’t let it dominate it. Keep this at the forefront of your mind as you continue to edit the story that you are trying to tell.

Use your backstory to explain your character’s development and to help raise the stakes. We are all products of nature and nurture. For better or for worse, our genetics and significant events mold us throughout our lives. A bad childhood, an abusive relationship, a lost love, an inspiring mentor, a challenging event that made us or broke us, all create additional motivation and obstacles to our character’s success or failure.

A mouse phobia could be caused by an event that occurred in childhood which then affects an event during the story that the protagonist must overcome.

Relate Backstory to Your Story ARC

Don’t make the backstory more interesting than the main story arc. If your backstory starts to take over your main plot, you may be telling the wrong story. Your beta readers or editor may pick up on this and may be able to help you determine how you allowed your backstory to become too central to your story.

Characters also have a progressive arc and the backstory is part of it. The backstory demonstrates how the character got to the beginning of the story, and then relates to how your character grows and changes over the course of your novel. This is especially true with the protagonist’s ARC. By giving your character trials that are particularly significant in terms of the character’s personal psychology and having the character successfully overcome the trial, the reader will see the logical progression in that character’s ARC.

Including Backstory in Your Novel

Avoid making your backstory too obvious. Introduce the information so your reader doesn’t feel jolted into realizing that you’re filling them in on what happened in the past but make it as a logical and reasonable introduction to the information.

Don’t just include backstory for the sake of filling up space either. Use backstory to explain why something happened. Dropping a block of information into it brings the story to a halt. Make it seem a natural. An incident in the story could be a way for the character to relate the current incident with an incident from his or her past.

A technique used in many old movies is to use diaries, journals, newspaper clippings or other secondary sources to give the backstory. You can do this even if your protagonist is reluctant to think about this backstory consciously, but you can let the reader in on the secret.

Find the right amount of backstory to enhance, not bog down, your story. Don’t think that you have to include all the character’s backstory verbatim. You shouldn’t dump all the character’s backstory into your novel. There is an art to including the right about of backstory to enhance your story. Backstory can be explained through dialogue and the way the character thinks or the way the character reacts to specific situations and people.

Flashbacks, Dream Sequences and Dialogue

Sometimes the reader needs to learn the backstory as quickly and efficiently as possible. When this is the case, ignore the “show, don’t tell” advice you’ve always heard and just tell the readers what they need to know in a sentence or two. Most of the time, however, back story can be made more interesting when dramatized. This can be done in a flashback, dream sequence or dialogue where one character describes an incident to another. Whatever the case, be sure to keep the dramatization as grounded and concrete as the rest of your story.

If you are dramatizing the backstory, have a natural trigger in the story for it. Don’t just have a character just start talking about something in his or her backstory. An incident or even a strong sensory impression like a smell or a song can be used to bring back the recollection.

Watch your language. If you are describing a flashback, write the first couple of sentences in past perfect tense to signal a shift to a more distant past for the reader. You can then settle back into past tense for the remainder of the flashback until you reach the end. At that point, past perfect tense can signal the end of the flashback. Another technique for showing the readers placing a dramatization at the begin or the end of a chapter.

Reveal bits of backstory little by little. You can even use this technique to create stronger suspense for your reader as they wait to learn more about a character’s mysterious past.

Give Your Characters Goals

Another essential component to add to your character bible is in identifying character goals.

A goal may be based on a promise or the result of a bet. It might be lofty or earthy.

Critical to the story are the protagonist’s (main character) goals (what he wants), motivation (why he’s going after what he wants), and conflict (conflict with himself, others, their goals, or something in the setting).

He is opposed or challenged by the antagonist, another character with goals and motivations of his own. Their conflict is one of the major drivers of the plot.

Main characters, both protagonist and antagonist, have friends who help them achieve their goals and prevent their opponent from reaching his. Additional characters can enhance the setting and create opportunities for even more conflict. The goals and motivations of these characters can also add depth to a story.

There may be much more to the pursuit of them than a character could ever imagine.

Character goals are character objectives. They are a place a character must reach for or get to, a task he must complete, an enemy or monster he must conquer.

The character desires something. If the desire is strong enough, the character will pursue the goal. If that desire is strong enough and the character is thwarted—especially by someone that the character doesn’t want to get the best of him or her. He or she will work even harder to achieve his or her goal.

The character’s goal may have cause him or her to ignore rules or laws. The character’s goals may push beyond accepted and acceptable behavior. These goals may be so strong that the character physically/mentally/spiritually ruining the character’s reputation.

Character goals move the novel forward. Without character goals, the story goes nowhere. Disorganized goals prove to be aimless and without direction. Without character goals, a novel has little purpose and have an incomplete structure.

He has goals that drive him, that allow him no respite because someone’s going to die if he doesn’t achieve them. If he fails, someone’s going to hate him forever, or greatly disappointed. Perhaps he will disappoint himself, or he’ll let somebody down.

Types of Character Goals

Your main character’s goal may be an immediate gratification goal, a save-the-world goal, or a private-self goal.

The short-term immediate gratification goals are important to move a story from scene to scene, but for a book, your character needs long term goals. Easy goals or short-term goals may come into play for a scene or for several chapters (think subplots), but characters need potent long-term goals to get them through everything thrown at them.

The saving the world goal is ideal for some genre novels. Your protagonist might literally save the world. However, not all save-the-world goals are literally about saving the world. These are simply external goals that a character reaches for outside himself and saves his little world in some way.

In addition to saving the world, save the world goals includes things like: save the princess, recover a treasure, discover a new world where mankind can make a fresh start, destroy the enemy, uncover the plot, diffuse the bomb, neutralize the pathogen, identify the murderer, get a wife back, graduate from college, or complete a masterpiece.

Protecting the self, the third goal type, would work well for a literary novel. Here, the protagonist might have to discover who he is, or try to hide his nature from others to protect himself from some sort of harm. He may try to protect the status quo and not rock the boat. Perhaps he takes the other extreme and decided to shake things up so that he can discover who he is and where he’s from. This protecting-the self is an internal goal and is often much more personal than the external kind.

Personal or internal goals: prove himself, to not be found wanting, be a success, persevere, show himself a better man than his father (or better than his father’s predictions), succeed or die trying, make it one more day, not kill himself, do it alone, ask for help, show himself a friend, love unconditionally, love for the first time.

You could also use both saving the world and self-protecting goals. This set up creates a powerful story and riveting characters. You could drive him relentlessly, playing the goals off each other so he has no choice but to succeed, no option to turn back.

Coming Up

Next week we’ll dig a little deeper into the most important characters in your story—the protagonist and the antagonist.

Get Your FREE Copy of The Comprehensive Novel Editing Checklist

If you have a first draft that you would love to publish this year, be sure to pick up a copy of my novel editing checklist and if you haven’t already, sign up to make sure that you never miss a post of this editing series.